Almost 200 million days of school attendance are lost every year because of the lack of proper sanitation. Many  diarrhea cases in children result from transmission of disease in schools rather than at home. “A school is a place where children should feel safe, not a place where they are susceptible to infection,” says Lizette Burgers, senior adviser of UNICEF’s Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Schools program But the message at the World Water Summit on 4 June in São Paulo was positive: Rotary members and their clubs can make schools healthier places through programs that provide clean...

See our photo gallery from São Paulo. 

When former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias was eight years old, his country abolished its military and turned its focus instead to human rights and peace. Now, the Nobel Peace laureate believes the world can gain just as much by following his country’s example. Speaking at the Rotary Peace Symposium on 4 June in São Paulo, Brazil, Arias recounted how his country traded in its tanks and heavy artillery to invest instead in economic reform and social justice. “My country promised me, and all its children, that it would invest not in the weapons of our past, but in the tools of our future;...

A project launched by members of Rotaract in Uttar Pradesh, India, is liberating women who emptied dry toilets with their hands by teaching them skills that enable them to earn a living for their families. Although the practice of manual scavenging was banned in India in 1993, it persists in many parts of the country. The women who engage in it, many of them the sole wage earners for their families, make a meager income for their efforts. Through Project Azmat, members of the Rotaract Club of SRCC Panchshila Park, partnered with the international nonprofit Enactus to organize these women into...

According to a 2012 report by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, Ghana has made great strides in providing its people with clean drinking water. But access to better sanitation has lagged. Only about 14 percent of Ghanaians have access to improved facilities, compared with the 54 percent target set for 2015 by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Addressing the issue isn't simple, as pit latrines need emptying, toilets need maintenance, and promoting hygiene requires education. The H2O Collaboration, a partnership between Rotary and the U.S. Agency for International...